About Camille Pissarro

Often regarded as the first Impressionist, Camille Pisarro is known both for his revelatory plein air landscape pictures, such as in The Path to Les Puilleaux, Pontoise (1881), and for mentoring artists including Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin. Pisarro himself was inspired by the rural scenes of Realists Jean Francois Millet and Gustave Courbet. He also received artistic guidance from Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, who instructed him in outdoor painting after Pisarro’s move to Paris in 1855. Pisarro, however, placed greater emphasis than Corot on spontaneity, saying “paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression.” From 1885-1889 Pisarro worked with Divisionist artists Paul Signac and Georges Seurat, but their meticulous method proved too rigid for Pisarro, who felt that it could not capture the movement and randomness of nature.

Danish-French, 1830-1903, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, based in Paris, France